Sebastian Käss successfully completes PhD

Sebastian Kaess, M.Sc., has successfully completed his PhD in Business Information Systems at the TU Dresden. In his dissertation entitled “Democratizing Software Development? Factors Influencing LCDP Adoption and Good Practices for Implementation”, Sebastian investigated which factors influence the adoption of low-code development platforms (LCDPs) in businesses. The doctorate was supervised at OTH Regensburg by Prof. Dr. Markus Westner and at TU Dresden by Prof. Dr. Susanne Strahringer.

The quality of the dissertation is underpinned by a total of seven publications that were produced as part of the work or are currently in the review process. These include papers in journals such as IEEE Access and contributions presented at international conferences such as the Australasian Conference on Information Systems or the Conference on Business Informatics.

In addition to the substantive focus on low-code platforms, the dissertation also makes a methodological contribution in the area of case study research. Sebastian and his co-authors developed a rigorous approach to Multiple Mini Case Studies (MMCS), an innovative methodology for investigating complex phenomena with limited case study sources. This methodology helps to address complex questions in an efficient and structured way and provides a valuable basis for future research projects.

In his dissertation, Sebastian analyses the potential and challenges of low-code development platforms that enable users without in-depth programming knowledge to develop software - a key innovation in view of the increasing shortage of skilled workers in the IT sector. In addition to a better understanding of how and to what end these platforms are currently adopted, his work provides practice-oriented recommendations for the successful implementation of these technologies in organizations. The most important publications are:

Kaess, S., Godefroid, M., Borghoff, V., Strahringer, S., Westner, M., & Plattfaut, R. (2021). Towards a Taxonomy of Concepts Describing IT Outside the IT Department. ACIS 2021 Proceedings. https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2021/9

Kaess, S., Strahringer, S., & Westner, M. (2022). Drivers and Inhibitors of Low Code Development Platform Adoption. 2022 IEEE 24th Conference on Business Informatics (CBI), 01, 196–205. https://doi.org/10.1109/CBI54897.2022.00028

Kaess, S., Strahringer, S., & Westner, M. (2023b). Practitioners’ Perceptions on the Adoption of Low Code Development Platforms. IEEE Access, 11, 29009–29034. IEEE Access. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3258539

Kaess, S. (2022). Low Code Development Platform Adoption: A Research Model. ACIS 2022 Proceedings. https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2022/22

Kaess, S., Strahringer, S., & Westner, M. (2023a). A Multiple Mini Case Study on the Adoption of Low Code Development Platforms in Work Systems. IEEE Access, 11, 118762–118786. IEEE Access. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3325092

Kaess, S., Brosig, C., Westner, M., & Strahringer, S. (2024). Short and sweet: Multiple mini case studies as a form of rigorous case study research. Information Systems and E-Business Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-024-00674-2

The outstanding collaboration between Prof. Dr. Markus Westner and Prof. Dr. Susanne Strahringer, who jointly supervised the doctoral project, was crucial to the success of this doctorate. This cooperation illustrates the strength of interdisciplinary and cross-university collaboration in the field of business information systems.